Backstory

Silk Blossom was born in Arjuf, the only daughter of the Mazil Family. They were a Patrician family with close ties to House Ledaal, and the leaders of organized crime in Arjuf and the surrounding area. Her parents never raised her, leaving it to distant relatives to take care of her. They did not want to involve her in the family business. So, Silk grew up never knowing her parents. Her uncle and aunt owned a dojo, it was not a place for serious martial arts but a center of community and exercise. Like many dojos, they taught valuable life lessons, but the goal of the training was to improve their lives rather than become a champion martial artist. Silk attended many lessons but never quite embraced them like others. Self-defense without weapons was foolish, she thought, so her uncle arranged for some city guards and Mazil enforcers to tutor her. From the former she learned to wield the spear and bow, and the latter taught her to use short swords. As she grew up, she spent more time away from home and with the Mazil family, getting involved with the family business despite her parents' wishes. One day, she came home to find a young dynast tearing up the dojo, challenging the dojo's champion to a duel or else he would finish destroying the place. Silk caught him by surprise, disarmed him, and knocked him out. The next day, the dojo was shut down and her foster parents were forced to move into the slums. Silk followed them, ashamed taht she had ruined their livelihood. Through her contacts in the Family, she gathered enough resources for them to reopen their dojo. She lobbied the Family to expand into the slums and establish a permanent base there. Though her parents were hesitant, Silk's determination won out. Of course, she was allowed to proceed under the condition that she give up her name and connections with the Family if she failed.

The Arjuf slums were a difficult problem to tackle but Silk found a solution. The lack of discipline made the locals terrible enforcers, but the dojo helped them with that. She bribed almost two dozen thugs with food and a home in exchange for training. Over the course of one year, she forged a band of tough and reliable enforcers. It snowballed from there. Demand for Silk's services grew and she didn't even need to recruit people into her band. Of course, people who could not adapt to the dojo's lessons or simply refused to change were thrown out and often nursed a grudge, but Silk's influence and power was enough to dissuade retaliation. Having established a base in the slums and gathered enough loyal subordinates, Silk used her connections to start smuggling goods in to sell. Silk's efforts improved the lives of hundreds in the slums. There were always troubling spots and difficult individuals to deal with but people appreciated what she was trying to do for them. Then, the young dynast she had beaten up years ago reentered her life. Ledaal Karnek barged into the dojo and demanded to face her. Knowing the a dynast would never take a loss easily, nevermind a second defeat, she had her subordinates evacuate the surrounding area. Their fight lasted several minutes before Silk disarmed Karnek and demanded that he give up. Her demand ignited the flame of his soul and he exalted. His anima of flames lit the dojo up and the flames quickly spread through the tightly packed wooden buildings of the slums. Silk fled. It was over, Karnek's exaltation meant that she could never defeat him and that meant that her work was finished as well. He pursued her towards the docks. The pursuit didn't tire him but the moment of exaltation had passed and he began to weaken. Stranded on a burning pier, Silk gambled. If Karnek lived, he might go on to ruin the Mazil family. She knew that she had to kill him and disappear to save the Family. As she tackled him into the waters, she exalted. Silk escaped with her life, clinging to the keel of a departing trader. Karnek lived and she could only hope that he did not remember what happened on the pier.

The crew of the Lagia's Pearl found her clinging to the side of the ship the next morning and rescued her. She had suffered severe burns and only survived due to her exaltation. She bartered with the unmelted jewelry she had left for passage to Nexus, and started a new life. Without the resources of the Mazil Family backing her up, her initial efforts to start a new organization was plagued by setbacks and sabotage. This did not dissuade her. Eventually, she managed to contact the Family under an alias and discovered what happened in the fire's aftermath. The fire had damaged much of the slums, but the Mazil were not blamed. Still, the situation around the cause of the fire meant that Silk's parents retired. She managed to get into contact with her parents and access some of their accounts in Nexus. She started a small delivery company, transporting anything from a simple letter to prisoners. In the middle of one such job, she ended up meeting the White Veil and became one of their agents.